Under the Federal Communications Commission (FCC's) “local number portability” (LNP) rules, a telecommunications consumer may switch telephone service providers and keep their existing phone number(s)—so long as the consumer remains in the same geographic area. One benefit of local number portability has been increased consumer choices with respect to carriers, services, and costs.
Recently, the FCC has changed its local number porting rules to shorten the porting period for “simple” ports from the current four days to one business day. Given the importance of local number portability, methods and systems that facilitate such local number porting would represent an advance in the art.